The subject invention relates to facings for faced building insulation assemblies, such as but not limited to those commonly used to insulate homes and other residential building structures; offices, stores and other commercial building structures; and industrial building structures, and to the faced building insulation assemblies faced with such facings. The facings as applied to the insulation layers of faced insulation assemblies of the subject invention are designed to improve the water vapor permeance characteristics of the faced building insulation assemblies for different applications and may also improve the fungi growth resistance, the aesthetics, the functionality of the building insulation assemblies in other respects, and installer productivity.
Building insulation assemblies currently used to insulate buildings, especially fiberglass building insulations, are commonly faced with kraft paper facings, such as 30-40 lbs/3MSF (30 to 40 pounds/3000 square feet) natural kraft paper. In addition,
U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,733,624; 5,746,854; 6,191,057; and 6,357,504 disclose examples of polymeric facings for use in faced building insulation assemblies and US patent application Ser. Nos. US 2002/0179265 A1; US 2002/0182964 A1; and US 2002/0182965 A1 disclose examples of polymeric-kraft laminates for use in faced building insulation assemblies.
While building insulation assemblies faced with such kraft paper facings function quite well, have been used for decades, and the patents listed above disclose alternative facing materials, there has remained a need for facings and faced building insulation assemblies with improved performance characteristics. The improved facings of the subject invention and the building insulation assemblies faced with the improved facings of the subject invention provide faced insulation assemblies designed to exhibit improved water vapor permeance characteristics for different applications such as but not limited to hot humid conditions. The facings of the subject invention and the building insulation assemblies faced with the facings of the subject invention may also exhibit improved fungi growth resistance, improved pest control characteristics, improved aesthetics, and other improved performance characteristics (e.g. reduced flame spread and reduced smoke development) as well as enable improved installer productivity and/or other cost savings.